Leaving Yet Again...

This is definitely not the first time and I can't say with certainty that it will be the last time I quit World of Warcraft. I made the decision this week and oddly enough it wasn't for the reasons I have discussed here or others have elsewhere. All of the things Blizzard did to drop the ball in Cataclysm still hold true. They just weren't enough to make me leave.

There are three reasons I play WoW and they shack out in a pretty simple priority:

1. Social interaction and friendships.
2. Challenge and competition of raiding.
3. Item upgrades.

While Cataclysm heroics may be actively bending us over on the second bullet right now, our guild of friends is still together and there are plenty of purples to be had. In terms of what motivates and drives me to play nothing has really changed. It was the realization of a concern that is always present when my WoW account is active that drove me to this decision.

At the end of Wednesday's raid I got into an argument with a fellow officer that is not important enough to recount here. After thinking about it I realized I was not upset with him, but with the lack of motivation from our raid. Why can't they take this more seriously? That question quickly caused me to wonder why I was so concerned about it. This topic spirals in my mind once or twice a month when I get frustrated with raiding.

It bubbled over last night though. What is my end game? I end up in full purples waiting for the next content patch, only to start the cycle all over again. Sure it is fun, but the last time I took an extend break from this system was in 2008. The opportunity cost for my free time and sanity alone is crushing me. So as I am want to do, I put it in a spreadsheet. The pie charts above are the result (yuck!). They sealed the deal.

I have a back log of movies, books and games to catch up on and my wife could surely use some more time and attention. It could turn out nine months from now that I am bored and want for purples in the worst way, but for now I am done.

Heroic Raid Stacking

So I get that early raiding in WotLK was easy and that five man heroics were a joke too. I don't have to see it, Dottie. I lived it. My guild absolutely crushed it. So when Blizzard made the decision to ramp up the early difficulty for Cataclysm, some complained, some cheered and I just rolled with the punches.

It is nothing that gear and time can't fix right? For normal modes that does appear to be the case. A month into the expansion and we are at 12 of 12. There were some tough fights for sure. A reanimated Nefarian took us 6 nights and 114 attempts to down. Nothing to wild though. Except when you start heroic raiding.

It is not across the board, but a fair amount of bosses either require that you stack your raid composition or suffer and fail. Look how many druids are in that heroic Nefarian screen shot. I count eleven! Heroic Halfus has been downed by 1,096 guilds as of today (1/24/11). Presumably the easiest boss. Tankspot recommends 3-4 tanks, 8 healers and 12-13 dps. Other strategies call for 4-5 tanks. Where do we get eight healers or five tanks from?

An even better question. Is this what Blizzard intended? We can bring the player not the class all we want. Well not Shamans, but that is not the point. Do we have to recruit new healers for 2-3 fights or suffer through DPS healing in their blue level off spec. Or are we not supposed to be here yet, unless we are willing to go an extra absurd mile? Something about all this feels broken, out of balance and just plain lame.

Cataclysm Changes

Not changes that are coming, but given the reins to Blizzard's MMO juggernaut for a day here is what I would change...

1. Flying
The trek from 80-85 went fast, less than 1 day fast and while that was appreciated from a sleep stand point, it made it feel less epic. Part of that was the ability to fly during these levels. I'm sure Blizzard put a ton of work into the 5 new zones they created, but I barely saw most of it. From 5,000 feet, on the back of a Frostwyrm, it all looked pretty boring. It's why I prefer a good steak to being hooked up to a feeding tube. The outcome is the same, but the experiences are polar opposites.

2. 84 to 85

Those levels certainly zipped by, but not at the same clip. If memory servers it took two hours and one million plus xp to hit 81. Alternatively 84 to 85 took six plus hours and nine million plus xp. Why did we only get five levels in this expansion again? So they could cram three levels worth of play time into one zone? It felt cheap. Twilight Highlands was a great zone, but it dragged after I was half way through it. Add the mobs in the zone requiring me to eat and drink after every two kills and it was near grueling.

3. Tol Barad
Like Wintergrasp before it Tol Barad was supposed to be a world PvP zone. Apparently they were unhappy with tenacity though, so the solution was to only allow equal groups into the zone via que. While that will surely make for a balanced experience, it also defeats the initial purpose. On servers were the faction ratio is completely out of whack (2:1 or more) it means plenty of people don't get in. Currently my server is seeing near battleground numbers of players facing off, think sub 15 v. 15. That is not world PvP it is a server only battleground that only a hand full of people get to play in every two hours.

4. Common Raid Lock Out
I have previously expressed some concerns with the shared raid lock out system. To date I had not experienced any issues with it though. Until last night. Blizzard's reasons for changing the system still don't make sense to me. Outside of that their go to example is the 25 man raid that starts the week with 25 players and has to split the raid into two 10 man groups. What about the 25 man raid that only gets 22 people for the first night? Has to bench two of their players to form two ten mans and then can not expand a raid back to 25 players the following night. Our group is effectively locked out of 25 man raiding for the rest of this week. I'm sure the two players that got benched last night and the three that show up tonight are thrilled to be relegated to PUGs or a "C" team for the rest of this week.

5. Early Healing
The biggest play mechanic to change in Cataclysm was healing by far. Damage dealers still hit things hard. Tanks still stand there and get hit. Both at roughly the same pace and with the same pool of resources. Healers got a rude awakening though. Our heals did not scale with our level, they cost bunches of mana and our main challenge is not running out when the fight is only at 50%. Gear helps a ton, from an average ilvl of 329 to 347 I have seen that challenge become much easier. For healers who might not read EJ all the time or are stuck running heroics with the random dungeon finder, life is going to be hard. What will ultimately end up happening is there will be less healers. We are already a slim bunch, but up the barriers to entry and you will see even less players sticking with it.

6. Archaeology

Want another time sink profession that takes forever to finish, but offers ten times the reward that fishing ever did? No, what do you mean no. I'm never getting Tyrande's Favorite Doll, at least not while it would still be useful to me in this tier. Technically this is a bonus profession. With a few more hours or sacks of gold I will have my two main professions to 525. Eventually relegating them to once a week or month efforts. The return on Archaeology will never be that easy. I thought this expansion was about things you shouldn't feel you have to do (see: Common Raid Locks). Well is it or isn't it?

Around the World in 85 Levels

Way back in September I was under the impression that Cataclysm would drop in November. I was also under the impression that the only way to get it was at a Gamestop at midnight. Both of those turned out to not be true. It ended up coming out last week (Dec 7th), I shifted my pre-order at Gamestop to another game and just bought it directly and digitally from Blizzard. I was still prepared for a three day slog of no sleep though. A near 72 hour leveling binge that would leave me with only fragments of my sanity. That didn't happen either.

This time around things were different. For Cataclysm, Blizzard went with a common release date/time in the US and Europe. So I could not start until 3am EST (12am PST). I was upset about this at first. After finding out I didn't have to go out in the cold at midnight though, I just went to bed at 11pm and woke up at 2:30am refreshed and ready to level. I was 81 before 5am and 82 soon after that. By 5pm on Tuesday I had hit 84 and logged off to be with my family for the evening. I was back on at 9pm and before 3am Wednesday I had hit 85.

So all five levels in less than 24 hours with two breaks to be a husband and father. This was a much different experience than 2008 and a welcome one. Sure my lovely wife gave me the go ahead to do as I wished with my staycation (wowcation?), but not having to beat myself up in doing so was awesome. The rest of the week saw me getting a solid 8 hours of sleep every night. Sure I filled my day with 5 man heroics and daily quest, but I did it on a normal sleep schedule and ate proper meals.

After a weeks time I have already hit superior and grabbed two epics. Tonight is our first 25 man raid. The first two ten man raids did not go so well, but everyones gear is getting better by the day. All I know is Toxitron better drop some bracers.

Just like in 2008, I'll do the numbers...

Days to 85: 1

Purples Replaced: all

New Purples: 2

Coolest New Purple: Earthmender's Boots

Special thanks goes to...

• My beautiful wife for being supportive and understanding given my addiction to not just WoW, but all things geeky.
• My son, to be honest he never knew what I was doing. I was always there when he was awake, but he is awesome enough to get my thanks anyway.
• Chort for leveling with me up to 84, he almost got realm first warrior after I logged off, but missed it by that much.
• My brother, for being a champ and heading into work at 5am on Tuesday. He wanted to level, but took care of his real world obligations instead. He still hit 85 by Thursday though.

Raven Lord

Squawk! While COD: Black Ops was being a son of a bitch last night, I picked up my first rare drop mount in WoW. The reins of the Raven Lord used to require a druid to even summon the boss that dropped the mount. Patch 4.0.1 changed that though. Now Anzu is just hanging out waiting to be solo farmed. It took me the better part of three weeks. Clearing to and killing Anzu takes about 20 minutes. So roughly six to seven hours, as I skipped it a few days. Not as satisfying as the mounts I've earned (Plagued, Rusted, Frost Wyrm Jr., Frost Wyrm Sr.), but still cool.

Site Watch
Totem Spot sounds like a play on Tank Spot sure. It is in fact a Shaman focused site created by some of the members of the Elitist Jerks shaman forums, WoWInsider columnist and various other sites. EJ has always been my go to resource, but mining quality data from threads that are 50 pages plus can be difficult. Hopefully TS gets support from the EJ and other community and stays around for a while.

The Shattering

The World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion is just around the corner. In one month I'll be leveling to 85 with all of my free time. In preparation for the release I decided, like a good fanboy, that I'd read the book that precede it. It is something I wish I could have done before WotLK, but Arthas was not out until five months after the game. While the book did get me excited about facing Arthas, I'd been level 80 for a while and some of the shine had worn off already.

It is no secret that the big baddie of Cataclysm is Deathwing. Most everyone knows that the lands of Azeroth will be getting a face lift care of the Betrayer. What the average WoW player doesn't know is who he is and where he has been. The last mention he got in a game was in 1995, during the second war, covered by Warcraft II and the expansion. Thankfully for us lore nerds we know through the books, about his origin, what parts he played in the past and when he was last seen.

So The Shattering would to pick back up after Day of the Dragon, right? Deathwing escaping, tail between his legs, to live and fight another day. Nope. Apparently he has been healing and planning his return in Deepholm. A fact I had not picked up on yet, save the paragraph in the wiki. My expectation was that The Shattering would be the build up before his return and it was. Just without mentioning Deathwing at all. Isn't this supposed to be about him?

The elements are upset, but we never find out why. Thrall leaves the Horde in the hands of Garrosh Hellscream without any logical reason. The same Garrosh who was suspected of skinning night elves, actually killed Cairne Bloodhoof and is still running the horde. Moira Bronzebeard, a character no one has seen since vanilla, is back to rule the Dwarfs in her father's absence. The same Moira who the horde has been killing since BRD opened it's doors. I guess that wasn't canon.

All that and not one mention of Deathwing. The whole story felt like filler. There were to many plots and not one of them carried any weight. There was not villain to root against or heroes to save the day, it all felt like tire spinning. Sure there are new leaders for the Taurens and Dwarfs, but none of it felt book worthy. Call it 50% my misplaced expectations and 50% Blizzard pulling punches. It was 100% disappointing.

Update: Resto Shaman 4.0.1

More thoughts on what I've been reading and playing as of this Tuesday. First a quote from an EJ thread on this very topic:

Most Shaman argue that Deep Healing doesn't have much value in the current state of the game. Incoming damage operates still under the LK model. Damage is really spiky, a missed GCD may result in player deaths and mana is not an issue. Most of the time, this results in players being at nearly 100% health or dead. In both cases, Deep Healing does not offer additional benefits. It will be a lot stronger in Cata, when player health will range between 100% and 0% for a significant amount of time.

My raid experience Wednesday night was cast from this very same die. Granted we only had 20 raiders on a 25 man raid. We had six healers though and lost a tank on all five of the sorry attempts it took us to kill heroic Lord Marrowgar. A fight we have had on farm for months was causing our healers heart burn. As a Shaman, who wears whatever hat my raid needs, I was having a hell of a time keeping the tanks up with my new tools.

Thankfully we are back on break from raiding till the expansion now. Where my new tools will be better suited.  For now it is back to my silly Mage.  He is crushing it by the way.

Resto Shaman 4.0.1

Hey remember when this bee log was about World of Warcraft. Forever ago right. Well my trajectory has been up and down since my last post about frozen bone dragons. I quit for the month of September when raiding content finally dried up like a raisin. Wait, that makes it sound sweet and delicious. Uh, think of a better simile that describes no new content for five months. Scratch that, moving on.

I got a wild hair last week to reactivate my account. This was without the knowledge of the changes in patch 4.0.1 by the way or that it would be out this week. I came back with the silly idea to level my Mage to 80 and drop 5,000 gold for epic herbalism flying. My timing was perfect for coming back to re-tune my Shaman.  New spells, talents, glyphs, reforging, crunch overload! So I rebuilt him, ran some heroic five mans and healed in ICC 25.

My out of the gate build was 0/2/34, something I drummed up a week before the patch without any research. Last night after raiding for two hours I left and respeced to 2/3/31.  My first impressions are as follows:

• Chain Heal feels weak for situations where the raid is not grouped up. You might say "duh that is the intent", but prior to the patch it was not the case. The first hit is much weaker now, so in these case the new Healing Wave is actually a better option, from a mana perspective at least.  Granted running the new Glyph of Chain Heal doesn't help either.
• Healing Surge seems like the go to spell, though I have read it gulps mana at 85. For 80 though I could spam it the whole fight. High cost, fast cast, big heal. Sold!
• Riptide used to be a "use on every cooldown spell" and now it seems it is even more valuable. Greater Healing Wave and Healing Wave both seem painfully slow without it. Glyph of Riptide seems to be a better option than it's counterparts too.
• Focus Insight seemed like a perfectly worthy 3 points in the 2nd tier last week.  That was until I saw first hand and read about just how situational it is.  First, you don't get the benefits of the shock if you miss with it. Second, any free GCD you could use to shock could be used to heal.  Third, if everyone is topped off and you can DPS you lose the benefits of the bonus healing in over heal.
• Telluric Currents, see Focus Insight.

Lots to play with still, mastery, reforging to get mastery, best bang for my buck stats, gemming, etc.  More as I play it.

November 2nd Cometh

I had a strong feeling that the next WoW expansion would be on the back half of this year.  Finding out this week that it was six weeks away was a bit of a surprise though.  Actually I just cancelled my account to go on a break. While Blizzard decide to do they same by not offering new raiding content.  Scathing commentary from a jilted lover? You bet your buns.

Back to the expansion.  My plan has always been to go on a binge the likes of my WotLK vacation in 2008.  Mind you that is tempered with a healthy understanding that I do not want to lose my wife and son in the mix.  So this time it will be slightly less hardcore, but still hardcore by most normal folks account.  A Tuesday release date makes that even easier, as my rule of thumb goes, if my son is around and awake I'm not gaming.

I'll admit this expansion has me less excited than the last.  From a lore perspective Deathwing has only existed in books for the most part.  They weren't the best WoW fiction on offer, to be fair, but I'm excited by it.  Just less than Arthas.  Only getting five new levels kind of sucks for the way I play WoW.  I stick to one character and attempt to max said character out to the best of my ability and time available.  Revamping the whole trip from 1 to 60 doesn't really offer me anything save a bored hour or ten flying around the world months after I've hit 85.

I'll play it none the less though, there are tons of cool things to see and do and I have less time to do them now anyway.  So bring on the expansion!

P.S. My local GameStop already sold out of collectors editions, WTF!

Yet Another Frost Wyrm

Chalk up another pixel dragon for my growing list of pixel achievements. I know it's not a real life success, but the pleasure centers in my brain are firing none the less. Do they fire or release chemicals? Lets ask this brownie I'm about eat. Sorry, back on topic, our raid group completed Glory of the Heroic Icecrown Raider last night. Which meant getting my second frost wyrm this month. This guy.

Frost Wyrm, I Choose You

Last night I earned the Reins of the Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher (say that 3 times fast) for completing the meta achievement Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 player). The feat took me the better part of six months considering I didn't have much of a 10 man group to speak of when ICC was released. With it I have come one step closer to having nothing to do in WoW till Cataclysm. A sad fact, but at least I will be flying into the expansion in hideously reanimated bone dragon style.

WoW Raiding and Motor Learning

World of Warcraft raid content or the "end game" more broadly has been a topic I've been churning over for a while now. The concept of how we learn specifically as of late and more over the time it takes for us to learn in WoW. In 1967 Fitts and Posner introduced a three stage model of motor learning. Reading over this is like a time machine to my one and only college psych course. The topic seems much more interesting when placed in the context of video games though. Before we dive into how a paper written in the late 60's applies to a MMO developed in the oughts however, lets briefly review what Fitts and Posner presented:

Cognitive Stage (1): learners attempt to form the overall concept by gaining information through the senses.

Associative Stage (2): learners understand how parts of the movement relate to one another; movements begin to appear efficient; errors are fewer; quality practice produces refinement of skill.

Autonomous Stage (3): learners movements appear automatic, stable, and somewhat effortless.

The stages are roughly analogous to most every guilds raiding progression. From the macro level of an entire instance to the micro specific boss that might put a halt to progression for weeks or even months.

The cognitive stage is the one I'd would presume to have the most variance depending on the guilds status as a leader or follower. Leaders being guilds that are seeing content on the PTR or mining boss abilities from patches prior to their release. Followers being the rest of us. The vast majority of guilds that watch the "leaders" kill videos and guides. It is simply a matter of how you collect information. Research and trial/error for leaders and by example or instruction for followers.

The associative stage is where the rubber meets the road. It is the difference between world first kills and shouting "we did it" months behind the rest. There are very few guilds that can take what they have learned in the cognitive stage and start to apply it immediately. Rectifying mistakes on the fly and creative problem solving are the tools that reward them with top honors. Members of the leaders can't just rely on their best players to get it done, the worst members have to carry their weight too. From top to bottom they have to be a well oiled machine.

For the followers, it takes repetition. Simply identifying mistakes can take a while, let alone resolving them. There is the potential to accomplish task through rote learning even versus actual understanding. The long and short of it is that it takes time. Guilds that are not skilled enough to get it early, can go through the sometimes grueling process of attempting the same boss over and over again until there is eventually progression. Folks that are not willing to put in that time will usually just end up waiting for the next dungeon to be released. That or see their more skilled member migrate to greener pastures.

Finally there is the autonomous stage, or in the world of PVE MMOs, farm content. Once you have been successful in a task enough, in this case a boss, it is time for everyone to get fat and happy with loot. Consider this the refractory period between dungeons, were guilds have the potential to get geared up for the next big thing or bored out of their minds. Member attrition during this stage is less stressful than in the associative stage. That is unless you lose enough knowledgeable players that you regress back to cognition.

Downsizing Azeroth

The raiding environment has come a long way since the original World of Warcraft. Forty man raids went to 25, separate 10 mans raids were introduced (e.g. Karazhan) and eventually we were given 10 and 25 man version of all raids in WotLK. It is with this knowledge and the experience of raiding through all of these changes, that I ruminate on the new raiding changes for Cataclysm. If you haven't read the blue post yet, it has been summarized nicely on MMOC and quoted below:

• 10-Man and 25-Man raids will share the same lockout.
• 10-Man and 25-Man raids difficulty will be as close as possible to each other.
• 10-Man and 25-Man raids will drop the exact same loot, but 25-man will drop a higher quantity of items.
• Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel
• For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid.

The assumption or hope that they will be able to balance the difficulty of 10 and 25 man raids seems wrong. Getting 25 players to move in sync is a much more difficult task than doing the same with 10. Space available to spread out is also less taxing with 10 players, unless they plan to scale dungeons based on the raid size. The amount of HPS and DPS required for gear check fights will always tip one way or the other for raid size. Add management is another difficulty that scales poorly. On almost every fight currently available I can't imagine equal difficulty being achieved. It certainly won't happen by making bosses with more health, that hit harder.

The value proposition that is currently on offer and the one being presented for the future are moving away from each other. Currently my $15 subscription fee buys me three nights of 25 man raiding a week and 10 man raids as time permits (3-7 hours a week) . Mind you $15 isn't doing much to break the bank, however some simple math shows the discrepancy:

WotLK Raiding: 56 avg hours/month @ $15 a month = $0.27 an hour
Cataclysm Raiding: 36 avg hours/month @ $15 a month = $0.41 an hour

No matter how the value shacks out for each individual's play style, at the end of the day there will simply be less time spent raiding. Less time means you get less for your dollar and that just plain sucks.

Having both 10/25 man raids pull from the same loot table does not completely remove the incentive to raid with 25 players, but it takes steps in that direction. It is easier to schedule 10 people than it is 25. That is the reason they started 10/25 man versions in the first place. Removing the option to do both though will ultimately leave some folks out in the cold. The example used in the blue post:

...if for a week or two you need to do 10s because half the guild is away on vacation...

Assumes that your normal group is 25 man, but can down size to 10 if need be. It usually takes 4-6 people posting out for us to be short handed. If that was the case we would have to have the perfect group structure and off specs to run two 10 man groups successfully. Otherwise 6-7 people will be left with nothing to do.

This may sound like the same complaint people made when the raid size was reduced from 40 to 25. I never subscribed to that argument though. In that case 40 man raids were being eliminated, 25 was your only option so you were forced to adapt. In this case 25 and 10 were both options and now you will be forced to choose. Raid with your 25 friends or cut the fat in a attempt to be more successful. All for the same gear.

King Slayer

Almost 17 months have passed since the release of Wraith of the Lich King and my guild and I have finally downed the boss for which the expansion is named. A month after started Arthas we had our first successful attempt, last night and yours truly got a shinny new mace (Royal Scepter of Terenas II). We will be moving on to hard modes next week, but for now it is nice to revel in the satisfaction of kinda sorta finishing this expansion. Pay no attention to the un-killed boss behind the curtain (Algalon the Observer).

Visual Display of Data

As of late I have been knee deep in the world of data visualization. To be fair my interest is mostly driven by the work I've been doing for the past year and a half, but it has painted my reading outside of work as well. My amazon cart runneth over with various books on the subject. Expounding on that topic conceptually sounds like a boring post though. So instead dear reader we will look at some graphs on WoW raid progression, specifically Ulduar care of WoWProgress.com.

The first graph shows the number of guilds that have cleared each of the four wings in Ulduar by time. Siege and Antechamber, the easiest of the four wings, have clear exponential curves that speak to their accessibility to the majority of the raid community. Conversely Keepers and Descent require more dedication and repetition to complete and as such are straighter curves with slower progression.

Next is the "easier" tier of achievements, I say easier in quotation because the majority of guilds do not make it this far. The two interesting trends on this graph are Cache and Heartbreaker. Until mid June it is clear that Hearbreaker was the hardest of the four achievements displayed. However post heart health nerf there is a marked spike in the number of guild completing the achievement. The graph quickly goes from slow straight line progression to a stepped progression. Indicating that it became easy enough for guilds to simply attempt the achievement to complete it. The stepping appears to happen on every Tuesday of the raid week. Please not that XT-002's heart may have gotten easier, but it is still a guild killer. The one step on Cache is a result in the time change for the achievement, going from 2 minutes to 3 made it easier. As noted by the slow straight line progression after the step, it is still not a cake walk.

Finally the "harder" tiers of Ulduar achievements, I say harder in quotation because this crap is seriously hard. The vast majority of guilds will not complete this content before 3.2, Afterlife included. Firefighter was nerfed in late June and has since eclipsed 3x Knock as the easiest of this set, noted by it's sharp spike. Alone in the Darkness was thought to be mathematically impossible by all most all of the top guilds until July 7th when Stars completed the task. Since then only 8 guilds have duplicated their success.

Talk about a nerd out, math, graphs and MMOs. I don't know if a round of cycling pictures will suffice to pull us out of this nerd chasm on Tuesday dear reader. Maybe I'll talk about chain saws, boobs and dirt bikes instead...Mmm Nah.